EDIT: for those downvoting me, I would be happy to engage in a civil discussion about why you think I’m wrong, and even change my mind if I’m mistaken.
This is extremely dumb for a number of reasons, not least of which is that it’s very clearly written with a certain bias.
A (the communist) is describing a tankie. But generally someone who identifies specifically as a communist is not authoritarian, they’re closer to anarchocommunism than the reverse.
B (the lefty antifascist) describes them as a subtype of A, but antifascists are diametrically opposed to tankies, ideologically. Also, “antifascist” is a word that has long been used to label a specific group of leftists… calling them “lefty antifascists” implies that there are also “right-wing antifascists,” trying to equivocate the sides by generalizing the word. Also, most importantly, the description is 100% bullshit.
C (the hard right) a single token addition of a very generic “hard” right person, to appear balanced. No making fun of this person like in the rest of the descriptions, just a list of facts… except “always an arsehole” which I would argue most of these people would enjoy reading about themselves because they would think it was funny and kind of true. Clearly the target audience.
D (the contrarian) this is the modern right wing lowest common denominator person, and an accurate description of the archetype, but no mention of left/right in this description. Wonder why?
E (the peacenik) what? Peacenik is just another historically left-wing-associated label. These people do not have a unified view of how to end the conflict, and certainly don’t frequently suggest ceding land to an invader. That’s a really stupid take on pacifism, and it’s just another dig at the left.
This is definitely dumb and probably just plain old propaganda.
This is how the meme is trying to generalize the term, yes. But historically, and especially in our current political environment, antifascism typically refers to a specific leftist movement. You have heard of antifa? Antifa is short for antifascist.
What I mean is: It is not a lie to use the word “antifascism” in a general way, but to unnecessarily specify left-wing antifascists when that is already the common understanding, you explicitly contrast them with supposed right-wing antifascists, which are conveniently not placed here on the chart... See my point? It reads like it’s innocuous, but you come away with an altered understanding without even realizing it. It’s a very effective and subversive disinformation tactic.
If you have not studied communism, and your main contact with communism is tankies on Lemmy and “communist” dictatorships in history, then I understand why you would think that.
But communists by and large are not tankies, and do not wish for states like the USSR, China, or North Korea. Those people typically identify as Marxist-Leninists (promoted mainly by Stalin after Lenin died), and yep they’re authoritarian, and they’re loud. And, despite the name, Marx himself would disapprove of this ideology for a number of reasons.
Read even just the first paragraph of the Wikipedia articles on ”Communism” and “Communist society.”
A communist society would entail the absence of private property and social classes, and ultimately money and the state (or nation state).
Communists want no state; it is effectively a type of anarchist or radically democratic ideology, where the citizens all equally share power through common ownership of industry… the very opposite of authoritarianism.
A communist society is characterized by common ownership of the means of production with free access to the articles of consumption and is classless, stateless, and moneyless, implying the end of the exploitation of labour.
The term communist society should be distinguished from the Western concept of the communist state, the latter referring to a state ruled by a party which professes a variation of Marxism–Leninism.
Communism is not an authoritarian philosophy. If you go talk to people in real life who identify as communists, you will tend to find communists as described in these articles. If you look on lemmy.ml, however, you’ll find lots of Marxist-Leninists (tankies) because that’s who the instance was made by… but that’s not really representative of communism as a whole, and many communists find that philosophy repulsive.
My main contact with communism is that I was born and raised in a communist country. Communism IS a 100% authoritarian regime. Allways was, allways will be.
That’s interesting, which country? I’d be willing to bet that the government does not actually describe itself as communist, but instead as a Marxist-Leninist socialist government, because even they know that what they do is not communism.
I’m willing to bet that because most (if not all) “communist” states in the world actually describe themselves as socialist, not communist, following Marxism-Leninism or some variation thereof. As far as I know, all of them do. So, which one are you from?
USSR. All these lefty regimes are 100% totalitarian. The whole premise of Marxism and variations is to remove individual rights and freedoms. It doesn’t matter how you spin it.
But it is apparent from any reading of the Communist Manifesto that the premise of Marxism is not to remove individual rights and freedoms, regardless of how you think it works out in practice.
Marx literally calls for removal of rights and freedoms and openly calls for a genocide. Did YOU read his manifesto? One must be blind or delusional to think otherwise.
Yeah, this is precisely the kind of state I was talking about. Thanks for confirming. I’ve explained twice in responses to you, and you haven’t actually addressed my points, so maybe you don’t understand what I’m saying.
The whole premise of Marxism and variations is to remove individual rights and freedoms
If you think Marxism-Leninism actually represents what Marx laid out as communism, you are mistaken. Marxism-Leninism was just Stalin-branded autocratic socialism—Marx had no say in the name. Neither did Lenin, for that matter, unless I’m forgetting my history. This, again, is precisely what I was talking about.
It doesn’t matter how you spin it
I think you should go back and read my original comment and see that the whole point was to unravel the actual spin in this image. No matter how you spin it, this meme places an unwarranted amount of blame on Western leftists while describing each label inaccurately and with a traditionally right-wing slant.
I downvoted you because I don’t think you are being objective and instead are bringing your own prejudices and preconceptions to your analysis. Basically you are guilty of the same kinds of bias that you accuse OP of.
Of course I’m biased. Everyone is. But am I wrong? My accusation was not that OP is biased, but that the meme itself was trying to secretly promote a right-wing narrative. I understand if you don’t trust me as a biased observer, but you can still read my points and decide whether they are factually correct or not.
If you think I’ve made an error, feel free to respond with a correction. I’m not here to flame anyone, just to point out that I see a vehicle for disinformation. I respect many philosophies on both the left and the right, even if I disagree with them, but regardless of “sides” everyone deserves to make informed decisions arrived at by their own reasoning. When you are manipulated without your knowledge, your ability to reason properly is taken away from you.
My downvote was based on the fact that you didn’t make your bias clear and instead presented your opinion as fact. Maybe that’s a “me” problem as I have a background in journalism and by formal training dislike any statement of opinion that is not specifically qualified as such.
Though I don’t agree with your position, I did not downvote you on that basis and never would unless I thought you were promulgating objectively dangerous or stupid ideas.
I assuming you mean the post was written from a right wing perspective correct?(that's what I got from your post at least)
I think it's written more from a well meaning liberal perspective. Probably doesn't understand the labels they're using, or at the very least oversimplifying people so that they crunch into the parameters they have created.
A They probably do mean tanky, and I myself have made this association in error. After all "Tanky" in the way it is used now is not as well known as the word communist, and many people who are tankies do describe themselves as communists.
B I've met people like these myself. One of my friends was in this camp until recently. Many of these people still look at Ukraine as it was pre Maidan, and don't realize the majority of people within the country don't support the fascist elements within. Plus there is Russian prop specifically aimed at hitting antifascists. They sold the initial invasion as a "denazification". If you are just listening to the words spoken by the leaders, and not seeing the atrocities the Russians are committing in Ukraine, I can see how one could fall for it.
C Describes a lot of the people in my part of the US actually, though, not all of them support Russia fighting in Ukraine. Rather they are more of a combination of this and E, where they want to get back to admiring Russia without dealing with the cognitive dissonance of Russia committing warcrimes in Ukraine, and also getting their ass handed to them.
D This used to be me until maybe 2014, and God knows where I would be today if I still acted this way. Basically anything that was considered "bad" of "forbidden", I wanted in. The upside is this is what led me into reading the Communist Manifesto, the Quran, and other "forbidden" materials that led me out of my close minded conservatism, but on the otherhand, I also read Mein Kampf, gave the BotD to many fascist and conferderate leaning people, and followed a lot of Russian news uncritically, and even had a Soviet idolization phase of my own. A lot of my mindset at the time was this really weird form of libertarianism combined with unbridled contrarianism.
E I feel this can include a lot of people from any perspective. Leftists who think appose NATO more than Russia's imperialism, Rightist who see the writing on the wall, and think the war should end while Russia is still ahead, to people who associate the increase in costs of living with the war, and simply want it to end no matter what ASAP for their own sake. I feel this could be expanded into several catagories, but then again, everything here is a severe oversimplification.
So are there flaws with this post: absolutely, but I don't think it was written in bad faith.
I can understand your viewpoint, but I don’t agree with it. I think you’re missing the signs that this was written to promote a right-wing narrative about leftists.
You say you think it’s written by a “well-meaning liberal perspective,” but none of the things you mention point to it being a liberal’s perspective, except for the implication that you are a well-meaning liberal and thus you identify with it. Coming from a liberal who interacts with mostly liberal people, and who has been friends with people on the left and right and talked philosophy with both: A, B, and E are just not written from the normal perspective of a left-leaning person.
By your explanation, you clearly understand the C and D roles best, which are the right-wing descriptions. Could it be that you are projecting a liberal perspective on something that is clearly a right-wing narrative because you are used to seeing this narrative, despite identifying as a liberal now?
When I first opened Lemmy and saw the very first post was a leftist post complaining about Neoliberals, I knew what I was about to get myself into with this place.
The most popular conspiracy theories are right wing ones. But conservatives arn’t exclusively drawn to them. Political brainrot has no political affiliation.
Propaganda is terrible at telling you how to think. But it is very good at telling you what to think about
Yeah it’s the one thing putting me off the platform. Like I’d describe myself as pretty hard left, and a pacifist. But Russia is a fascist state performing an unprovoked attack on a neighbouring nation. Just because many NATO nations have right wing problems (and tbh I feel a lot of people on the left haven’t heard the expression “don’t make the good the enemy of the perfect” - shit is bad in the West but it’s nothing compared to life in Russia) doesn’t undo that fact and Ukraine has the right to defend itself and it’s right that we support that.
The fact that some may consider NATO’s support to be hypocritical given the middle East doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
Just because Russia is wrong doesn’t make supporting Ukraine right. The only reasons US turned on the money tap for Ukraine is so that is can be funneled through Lockheed Martin & Co, essentially injecting cash straight into the MIC pulsing veins.
Hundreds of thousands of dead Ukrainians and Russians be damned- shareholder value is going up.
Now it doesn’t take much imagination to think of scenarios where the money tap turns off - just let Trump win next year and watch him speed run turning it off - and then what? What if Ukraine ends up being overrun anyway by Russia?
What was the point of all the dead young men? For a territory that is primarily ethnic Russians who primarily speak Russian. For a territory like Crimea who has been part of Russia proper for hundreds of years until handed over arbitrarily by a premier in the 1950s.
You want me to be honest? I don’t give a shit which corrupt Eastern European government is the legitimate sovereign over Eastern Ukraine and Crimea. Russia or Ukraine, makes zero difference to me. Not worth potential nuclear war. Not worth dangerous global inflation. Not worth pushing Russia away from Europe and towards China.
We are making a big mistake which everyone will pretend is “obvious” like Iraq 20 years ago. Of course jingoists can’t see anything other than war in front of their noses. Anything else seems almost absurd
Nope. Setting the precedent that stronger nations can take territory from weaker nations by force would mean an immediate end to the post WW2 rules-based international order and would bring an end to the most peaceful era in human history.
Xi is watching Ukraine very closely as he has made nearly identical claims about Taiwan and much of the South China Sea. So are the Japanese, Koreans, and Vietnamese. This is not a path that ends well.
Taiwan isn’t really identical to Ukraine. China is nearly a magnitude larger while Russia is only about 4~5x bigger. Taiwan is also infinitely more important to the global economy and US foreign policy than Ukraine.
Ukraine doesn’t matter. Russia controlled it for the entirety of the Cold War and it never mattered. This whole thing is essentially a Ukrainian independence war starting in 2014.
I’d say the US invasion of Iraq was dramatically worse for the “rules-based international order” since US had very little reason to be in Iraq, a country halfway across the world.
Having said all that, US support of Ukraine has nothing to do with the rules based order. I re-iterate - it’s to a) pump money straight into Lockheed Martin & friends b) test out a bunch of new military tech (sort of like Spanish Civil War before WW2) and c) an attempt to make Russia bleed for every inch of territory
I wish people would take ideology out of these discussions.
All you are doing is arguing in favor of realpolitik over the many other possible incentive structures that political theorists have proposed as informing the ecology of international relations. While I think realpolitik certainly plays a role, I also think it’s stupid not to recognize that there are many other forces at work as well, at least some of which really are based on good intentions, no matter how far awry they may have gone.
I wish people would take batshit conspiracy theories out these discussions.
The US doesn’t need external reasons for defense spending. Trump (nor anyone else in the GOP) is going to cut defense spending. So that’s all just something you made up in your head, but isn’t at all a real thing.
The Soviet control of Eastern Europe actually was a big thing in the Cold War. It’s actually what the cold war was mostly about. So what are you talking about Soviets controlling Ukraine was no big deal?
That agreement (and many more that followed on from that) countries in Europe agreed to respect each other’s sovereignty. Mostly because they didn’t want another World War. Putin has violated those agreements.
This isn’t just ideological, though when a fascist invades a neighbouring country on the grounds that people of their ethnicity lives there, it raises some concerns doesn’t it? But at any rate, Russia invaded a sovereign democracy. It’s only right that all of the democracies of the world oppose this.
US is buying russia’s defeat and demiliterisation on the cheap.
EU and US are not always on the same page but on this they are.
Starting shit in Europe is very personal and very symbolic to western nations as well having the massive precedent of WW2.
Cold war is great for stable economic MIC growth. Actual war is the opposite especially when other goods and trade is harmed causing inflation and all other economic shenanigans that one would want to avoid outright or from escalating.
Ukraine and other eastern Europe countries now looking to seek protection of nato with which there are mutliple requirements and conditions for said joining and few of which are core liberal democractic based.
Its never one thing. Politics is like a never ending game of dominoes where pieces fall and right themselves anywhere and everywhere
It’s never one thing but more like a pie chart. If we looked at the biggest chunks on the pie chart, they would be the things I outlined and take up the majority of the chart. Hurting Russia is nice, you’re right, but Russia is not a real threat. Other countries don’t need to join NATO. Russia does not have the capacity to properly invade Ukraine, the poorest country in Europe right next to their border. The only real threat Russia has is nuclear weapons, and should Russia start nuking non-NATO countries I don’t think Article 5 is going to matter - the US is going to respond.
I view Ukraine war a lot like the Spanish Civil war in 1936. Nice playground to test out new military tech. Nevermind the hundreds of thousands of young men who are going to die or be permanently maimed, Ukraine having their demographics crippled for the next century, and the hundreds of millions of poor across the world who are suffering under rising inflation due to things such as food supply
I agree war in Europe is very “symbolic” but that doesn’t matter in a geopolitical sense. It’s only useful as a propaganda tool in order to justify the eternal prolongation of the above mentioned destruction
“It’s never one thing but more like a pie chart. If we looked at the biggest chunks on the pie chart, they would be the things I outlined and take up the majority of the chart. Hurting Russia is nice, you’re right, but Russia is not a real threat. Other countries don’t need to join NATO. Russia does not have the capacity to properly invade Ukraine, the poorest country in Europe right next to their border. The only real threat Russia has is nuclear weapons, and should Russia start nuking non-NATO countries I don’t think Article 5 is going to matter - the US is going to respond.”
Russia not a threat? Im sure ukraine disagrees, as with other border nations.
Russia actual capabilities wernt truly known to be this terrible until they invaded and even what was known wasn’t universal and apparent to everyone.
Others dont need to join nato? Sure. Until they do. WW3 and European wars seem like a silly concept and then it happens all of a sudden nato looks to be a great deal to get back to that sense of security as well as having a gurantee of that security.
I view Ukraine war a lot like the Spanish Civil war in 1936. Nice playground to test out new military tech. Nevermind the hundreds of thousands of young men who are going to die or be permanently maimed, Ukraine having their demographics crippled for the next century, and the hundreds of millions of poor across the world who are suffering under rising inflation due to things such as food supply
Its more like the Korean war with old tech and surplus being used up. While im sure there is new technology to be had the majority of it is all old stuff. From 1960’s to 2000’s
I agree war in Europe is very “symbolic” but that doesn’t matter in a geopolitical sense. It’s only useful as a propaganda tool in order to justify the eternal prolongation of the above mentioned destruction
It does matter to every European indvidual. Their personal cognition of history and current values is one where starting WW3 was not a reality they had but now the potential is very real. Im assuming you are american so maybe you dont understand what it means to have a neighbouring country at anytime can roll over your border as well as not having the worlds largest military or police which a single american city can have more then some countries entire armies.
People do have genuine feelings and reactions. Its not all calculated Patriots string pulling
Russia not a threat? Im sure ukraine disagrees, as with other border nations.
Russia is not able to, with some of the highest military spending on the planet, properly invade a weak country right on their borders. Again, we’re talking about the poorest country in Europe. Whereas if we look at the American invasion of Iraq - within a month the Iraqi government had collapsed. Now, let’s see what other countries Russia could presumably invade.
The only real options are
the baltic states which are already in NATO. So no need for NATO to spread there.
poland - who has a military budget more than 3x Ukraine’s along with a more modern air force and air defense system. Not to mention they are also in NATO. Even if Poland wasn’t in NATO, Russia would stand no chance.
finland - this is probably Russia’s best bet - they were spending about 20% less on their military as Ukraine in 2020. however Ukraine and Finland have drastically different geographies. Ukraine is mostly open plains so Russia historically wants to control Ukraine as it’s an easy way to invade Russia (both Napoleon and (edit: i refreshed my memory on French invasion and was incorrect. They went through Belarus) Hitler exploited this in order to invade Russia). However Finland is dense forest and the winters are harsh. The USSR even tried to invade Finland right around WW2 and failed miserably. And back then Finland was a poor backwater relative to what it is today.
So, Finland I think is justified in wanting to join NATO but realistically it’s not necessary. Should Finland get invaded, they would end up getting support from the US and Europe just like Ukraine is getting now. In 1939 they didn’t get that support and they still held back the Russians. Now with them being much richer relatively and Russia being weaker - it just isn’t realistic
Do you see what I’m saying? Russia isn’t a real threat. The only card they hold is nuclear weapons, and that’s a last resort option because they know it would very likely signal the end of the regime.
While im sure there is new technology to be had the majority of it is all old stuff. From 1960’s to 2000’s
Yes, both Ukraine and Russia are bringing out relics in this fight. Russia is burning through old Soviet tanks from the 1950s. But modern air defense systems, cruise missiles, drones, and modern satellites have never been used in this capacity. This is great for the US. They are able to use their satellites and communicate real time information to the Ukrainians. They learn what’s best to pay attention to, what are the limits of their tech.
All parties have learned just how useful drones can be. They’ve been used in many ways. As recon, as ways to attack people in trenches by simply dropping grenades on them, as suicide drones, etc. US military engineers are taking this massive treasure trove of data and reinvesting their work and money into places that have been shown to be most effective.
Not to mention all the behind the scenes cyber warfare / intelligence gathering that is going on. I’m telling you - a lot of people in the MIC are very happy about this war. And of course our defense contractors are getting tens of billions of dollars which can conceivably become hundreds of billions before this war is finally through.
People do have genuine feelings and reactions
Obviously people have genuine feelings. But governments don’t have feelings. They practice realpolitik and that involves lots of educated smart people making cold calculated decisions. Feelings mean nothing to deciding whether to go to war or even when talking about internal policies. There’s that famous quote said to Yanis, that minister from Greece. “Elections cannot be allowed to change economic policy” by the German finance minister in a Eurogroup meeting.
Im assuming you are american
I was born in South America. Although I concede there is very little risk of nations invading each other in South America just like in the USA.
Now it doesn’t take much imagination to think of scenarios where the money tap turns off - just let Trump win next year and watch him speed run turning it off - and then what?
Are you honestly saying that if Trump wins he’s going to cut defense spending? Like really? You actually think the GOP is going cut defense spending? Reaaaaalllllly?
So it follows that the whole conspiracy theory about Ukraine being a scheme to justify defense spending is all bullshit. The US doesn’t actually need external reasons to justify defense spending.
The US doesn’t actually need external reasons to justify defense spending.
Yes it actually does. Congress can’t just pass a bill randomly and send $100 billion to Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. It needs a big seemingly groundbreaking reason. Which is partly why this war has been so hyped up and Russian is depicted as a major threat to Europe when realistically they are so weak they can’t even properly conquer the poorest country in Europe right next to their borders.
I say partly because it actually is a fairly important war being the largest war in Europe since WW2. But absolutely, just like Cheney & co took advantage of 9/11 to funnel money into war, our modern day politicians are doing the same thing. It’s not a conspiracy theory. Or at least, in 20 years from now people will talk about it as if it’s obvious.
Where is this $100 billion to Raytheon and Lockheed Martin? Is this real legislation or just something you made up?
20 years from now people will be talking about how obvious it was that Glavset was pumping propaganda on the internet. How could people have been silly enough to believe their obvious bullshit?
But here we are. Russia brazenly invades a sovereign democracy and a legion of people on the internet think “this is fine” simply because the internet told them to think this way. Ah you can be contrarian to all logic and reason (be a rebel!) by supporting foreign authoritarians!
I mean, yeah, the conspiracy theory is bullshit. Just pointing out that if Trump wins, turning off the tap of support to Ukraine is very much a possibility.
Money to Ukraine. Not defense spending. Try reading more slowly next time. That helps me sometimes.
We’re discussing the billions of dollars going to a) prop up the Ukrainian budget and b) “military aid” which goes through our favorite defense contractors.
It’s very likely should Trump win that this fountain is getting closed. He’s said as much fairly explicitly.
The fact that some may consider NATO’s support to be hypocritical given the middle East doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
Yeah that’s the weirdest line of thinking of seen on this. “If we aren’t always the ones doing evil things then we’re being hypocritical!” Like we should never do the right thing because occasionally being on the right side is worse than being hypocritical? Or maybe it’s that doing something wrong in the past means you should never try to do the right thing? Or maybe if someone has done something wrong in the past it’s simply not possible for them to ever do something that’s right? What is the logic here?
I believe this is part of the “don’t make the good the enemy of the perfect” thing. Because we’re not good in all ways it is assumed that everything we do is for evil. You see it even some of the responses to my post - that we’re only providing support because it fuels our military industry profits. And to be honest, that is probably true. But like it’s still doing the right thing, even if it’s for the wrong reasons.
Wouldn't go that far. Actual communists may not be as reflexively "West Bad" as tankies, but generally have a negative view of Western-led international initiatives like NATO.
I am a full blown communist, despie the soviet union, china, the DPRK, vietnam, the middle east and so on, yet support NATO, the west and especially europe, while also acknowledging that the west is not perfect and does a shitton of bad stuff. Edgy anti-communists can’t bother to not think in black&white. Reality is more complex than that.
wait, you think it’s wrong to have a problem with an authoritarian state as a communist?
brother in Christ, most left coms see Stalinism, and it’s progeny as nothing more than fascist masquerading as communists, I mean what actual resemblance do they have to a stateless society run by local governments made of the people who live there, and while I’m not 100% with the outdated anarchism, I can at least recognize that the soviet and the sino state structures aren’t communist
And the name we designate these “communists” are tankies or MLs (Marxist-Lenninists). They are only communist in name and believe in authoritarian ideals like what is happening in China or Russia.
Spiderman shouting “Fascist” at Spiderman, at this point.
Not that it matters. Nobody on this site has any actual influence over the killing. We’re all just getting off on being self-righteous and calling each other names.
People upholding liberal and democratic values do have influence over these matters. But obviously “lefties” and “righties” try their best to undermine human rights.
“I’d say that’s pretty smart. He’s taking over a country – really avast, vast location, a great piece of land with a lot of people, and just walking right in.” “Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine – of Ukraine. Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful.”
So Donald J. Trump i type C. ? Hard right? I would say Trump is not “hard” right, he is the leader of the right wing in general of all conservatives. He represents their interest best. And all conservatives in Europe think the same way as Trump:
Afd in Germany:
Kotré describes Ukraine as a US staging ground to destabilize Russia, adding: "And when we talk about that, we also have to talk about the bioweapons laboratories that are aimed at Russia.
He seems to be Category E, but I say he is also C.
Le Pen in France: Of meeting the Russian president in 2017, she replied: “The Vladimir Putin of five years ago is not exactly that of today, … okay war in Georgia in 2008 was not the same? She wants to find a european solution and does not want the US to help Ukraine, basically corruptly Pro Russia behind the scenes like Trump.
People do not seem to realize how hard the right wing is betting on the destruction of Ukraine. They can use the same to eradicate the “social democrats” in their own countries as Putin did with Navalny. Use it to justify Authoritarianism at home.
Yes he is. Attracted to the racist sexist Russian Military culture.
And sure Trump is mostly just a narcissist that doesn’t have any real ideological thinking. Mostly he’s just going along with whatever will make his supporters adore him. But he’s all about the racism and sexism, and these are used in fascist propaganda. Given Trump actually is these things, this propaganda is all the more effective. “He tells it like it is!”
But even if Trump himself is just a racist misogynistic asshole that’s not intentionally creating a fascist movement, his personality traits have created a fascist movement whether Trump himself intended that to happen or not.
It's been bizarre some of my interactions with group A and B. I've been active in leftist circles for most of my time on the internet. I definitely get and agree with a lot of the criticisms with the US, NATO, and the EU, but I don't get how so many people think the Russian or Chinese government are any more righteous, especially considering the human rights violations and encroachments on sovereignty we've seen from both countries. Not just in their past either, but within the last decade!
The situation kinda feels like how Japan justified its imperialism to the outside world during the Invasion of China, South Asia, and the Pacific. Their official stance was they were aiming to rid Asia of Western imperialism and replace it with a sphere of co-prosperity, Despite this message however, they were absolutely brutal to the lands they occupied. The murdered and raped indiscriminately, and those they kept alive they enslaved and worked to death in brutal conditions. No sane person today who knows the extent of their harm would ever defend them as a power, even if their supposed message was "anti-imperialism."
You can oppose western imperialism, US hegemony, and capitalism without siding with other imperialists, fascists, and psuedo-communists. The actions of a country should speak for them, not the messages their propaganda tries to make you believe. Considering what I know from Russia's Soviet legacy with Eastern Europe, the actions they took against Chechnya and Georgia, their local treatment of dissidents, the brutal persecution of queer people that makes Florida look tame, the war crimes and human rights violations committed in Syria and Africa by Wagner, and the bombing, killing, raping, and kidnapping of civilians in Ukraine. I don't see how anyone could defend them or their actions. I know the US is guilty most of it through out its history too, but you shouldn't oppose a monster by supporting another monster.
I think that at least some of it is a knee-jerk reaction to the narrative that is pushed. There is no analysis, no debate, at the moment NATO is sold like some kind of NGO, countries that until yesterday were bombing others with zero concerns today are standing in (justified) horrors for the Russian war crimes, like if we discovered war in 2022. For some, this narrative is simply unacceptable, even if it ends up in the right place (i.e., supporting Ukraine in defending itself from an imperialist nation). The problem comes with the NAFO-fellows and the likes, where immediately as soon as you say anything to bring up these very contradictions, you are a genocide denier/enabler/supporter.
I am sure that for others is a matter of countering the US, or the mainstream media or whatever, though.
I posted on lemmy.ml calling out tankies as terrible human beings. Pointed out the term was coined by communists disgusted at their fellows cheering on the Soviet’s brutal oppression of other communists. Said tankies don’t deserve the title of “communist”, because at its core the ideals of communism are equity and human dignity. Called Marx “flawed and written for a world that existed 175 years ago”.
I mean, Marx never claimed to have all the answers. His whole schtick was that society was progressing to a new and fairer stage of human civilization and economic organization, not that he knew the smoothest way to get there.
I always think of Marx as a brilliant economist, because he identified a lot of real issues with capitalism as industrialization was in full swing.
He really sucked on the political side of things though. “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” will always result in an Animal Farm situation. Just human nature.
I think communists fell into the trap of thinking that because a dude is right about a lot of things it means he’s right about everything. It’s kinda like a cult in that way.
Every time I read someone expressing this view, I feel like encouraging to read something from Graeber, for example “Debt”. Not for the discussion on debt itself, but mostly for the different ways societies were organized over millennia.
Orwell wrote a critique of modern society, soviet Stalinist society in particular, in animal farm. It’s not an anthropology book, it’s political satire that came from a socialist (!). I am not sure your induction that it applies to all humans under every circumstance was therefore intended by the author (lord of the flies might be a much better example in this case).
Graeber is actually far for boring, and as an anthropologist his writing tend to be a bit more general.
As Marx once said, "If one thing is certain, it is that I am not a Marxist."
That being said, 'Dictatorship of the Proletariat' is very widely misunderstood, in no small part due to Marxist-Leninists using it as cover for their vanguard bullshit.
Because they only exist to push the putin agenda. They’re the Jordan Peterson of the left, but I wouldn’t even call them leftists. They’re red fascists.
Hrm uh… I would describe myself as a leftist antifascist.
And I do not think that elements of fascism within Ukraine’s society and government make it somehow deserving of being invaded, absorbed into Russia, having their culture erased, and worse.
Getting more technical, maybe the term anarcho-communist is i think actually accurate, but then you end up with less politically informed people assuming I am the worst thing imaginable, a violent anarchist terrorist that wants to violently overthrow every government and replace it with nothing, while simultaneously /also/ being an authoritarian who believes in a vanguard party, no dissent allowed an oh money and property are not allowed to exist any more.
Then on the other hand you could say maybe social libertarian, but you run into the same problem woth the other terms: Every American thinks Libertarian = AnCap, and ‘social’ as a prefix denotes basically ‘communism lite’ to most Americans.
What I actually am is a person who believes in the right to privacy in personal matters, freedom of speech as in the ability to say unpopular things and be judged by people individually and by groups collectively, but not at the point of a goon squad with guns or the ability to imprison or impoverish you preventing you from criticizing an existing power structure, be it government, corporate, religious or otherwise.
I believe in protecting the oppressed, providing a reasonable standard of living, education amd medical care for all, that people should genuinely, directly care and help their neighbors (not indirectly by donating to some incredibly inefficient charity, and especially not by hypocritically acting extremely concerned about whatever issue but not actually /doing/ anything /useful/ about it).
I believe that American society is far too individualistic and selfish, that worker co ops with a democratic governance structure are a far superior way to organize economic production than the authoritarian private business model that defines social relations within especially large corporations, but even most medium and small business enterprises I have ever been a part of as well.
And I also do my best to temper these beliefs with realism, knowing that these things are an idea of a better world to strive for, in a world that is brutally unfair, difficult to predict, and is full of many, many others who disagree.
You might even say that even when societies are organized into nation states, even when employees are organized into corporations, or adherents organized into religions, at a bigger picture level they all compete with each other in a rather stereotypically anarchic way, often violating the ‘rules’ that are supposed to govern their interactions, and nearly always employing every method possible to bend those rules, break those rules and get away with it, and to be the ones making those rules.
I can, and did, easily fit in to all the chapo themed sub-lemmies, it is very easy to joke about the hypocrisy of American domestic politics and economic practices.
But they never talk about the Ukraine Russia conflict.
Sure, they all agree that Israel is doing a genocide, which is my opinion as well.
But you cannot be critical of China. I barely mentioned that /maybe/ if Taiwan wants to be independent, that a flawed democracy exerting its will to self determine should not just de facto be waived away by the geo strategic situation, and they all got extremely edgelord extremely quickly.
Eventually the topic turned to surveillance and freedom of speech, and they basically all entirely believed that China has no problems with that at all.
Delusional.
Its actually very confusing to me that online Chapo fan communities are seemingly all Marxist-Leninists, or Maoists, or even more confusingly to me think that the Chinese government and societt even is communist, when they are so obviously state capitalists (red fascists, as many here seem to say).
The Chapo podcast almost never touches on foreign policy beyond making fun of how absurd many American foreign policy decisions are and how poorly informes most Americans are about other societies.
Anyway this is a long post but here is more kindling for this thread:
I am a lefty antifascist, but I don’t believe that Ukraine’s right to self determine democratically should be overridden by the Russian state.
And though I believe that war itself is a crime… I do not see how any reasonable person can think that Ukraine should just lie down and give up.
“All war is bad, even when defending against invasion. The Allies shouldn’t have invaded nazi germany to stop their fascist imperialism and genocides, just have peace talks! Maybe NATO and Ukraine needs to just talk with russia. So easy. Fucking war mongerers on bOth siDes. Peace Talks Solves Everything! SMH My Head”
Every news source has its biases, and for some it is more than biases. I’ve read Fox News and Russia Today (English and Russian versions, because they are very different sites, of course. Not that I can easily read it nowadays) because even if they might post only selective facts, it also gives you an idea of what the propaganda campaign, if any, is trying to concentrate on, at the very least from their point of view. The real problem with “contrarians” is saturation by actual paid propagandists and that they don’t have a problem encasing themselves inside a very small bubble while calling everything else a bubble. But it’s hard to be a critical thinker if your don’t “contrarian” yourself.
NAFO is a Nazi propaganda op. Literally. The founder, Kamil Dyszewski (aka Kama Kamelia) is a Holocaust denier who adores Hitler. I call this the SS type genocide denier. That’s actually the most common type.
In case anyone thinks the rest of NAFO distanced themselves from this guy: Lol no, he was just on stage at the NAFO summit in Vilnius.
Further down in that Twitter thread someone posted archive links to some of the actual posts (and not just screenshots), so you can verify this yourself. For example: archive.ph/mVvYE
And yes, this is the NAFO founder’s Twitter account, as mentioned here in this glowing article about NAFO in Politico:
I think we should stear clear from this one, op seems to be wanting to start a fight between those dumbass tankies and everyone else.
This post was made in bad faith and is just grouping us in a us vs them kinda way, and seems that its starting to get boted too so its a lost cause by now.
Disengage now and just watch the fireworks from a safe distance so that you dont get burned.
My guy, the only Nazis that were even vaguely left-wing were purged in the Night of the Long Knives. They were shitheads, but they were vaguely left-leaning shitheads. After that, Nazi policy was to cozy up to powerful business interests to maintain the support of the conservatives in Nazi-era Germany.
Nazis used socialists for a hot second to rise to power and then killed them to cuddle up to corporate interests and blame minorities for all their problems like little bitches. Same conservative playbook as today. Read a book, you don’t sound so smart.
The entire Eastern European bloc has been in a nosedive since the 90s. Its like trying to pick sides during WW1, when everything is corrupt and everyone in authority sucks and yet the only real crime is saying people aren’t killing each other fast enough.
If Eugene Debbs were alive today, he’d still be in prison.
I've spoken to a few, and their opinion has been, to a man, overwhelmingly negative towards the old Soviet-supported societies. Economic and health data supports their opinion that the Warsaw Pact era was significantly worse for their countries than the modern day.
to a man, overwhelmingly negative towards the old Soviet-supported societies
Then you’re talking to a rarefied group of people. Possibly just the circle you run in.
I’m friends with a couple of engineers and other techies out of Poland and Belarus. They were educated out there and started their careers in the mid-90s, when the economy went into freefall. They did not consider what became of those countries an improvement, and that’s before guys like Duda and Lukashenko took office.
Admittedly, I also know a Russian guy who is absolutely ride-or-die for Putin. Loves him. Thinks he saved Russia from collapse. But he’s also a big Trump guy who thinks Joe Biden is a communist, so…
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